The Vamps’ “Somebody to You” Starts Slowly at Pop Radio

The Vamps' "Somebody to You (featuring Demi Lovato)" stumbles out of the pop radio gate.

Neither the vocal involvement of radio favorite Demi Lovato nor the overall resurgence of boy bands was enough to help The Vamps’ “Somebody to You” make a big splash at pop radio.

According to Mediabase, the song earned a mere five monitored adds from the pop format this week.

Despite being one of only a handful of songs to officially impact this week, it was not even one of pop’s twenty most-added songs. And insofar as none of the stations that added “Somebody to You” operate out of a major market, the song did not establish the foundation it needs to reach a notable audience.

First week reception is not everything, and the fact that radio programmers were so fixated on Taylor Swift’s new “Shake it Off” (along Katy Perry’s holdover “This is How We Do”) this week makes that suggestion even easier to swallow. The song can still find a way to establish a presence at radio.

But insofar as this song has been on the radar for months, the utter absence of first week interest is an undeniably discouraging sign. It is a sign that the song itself did not make a meaningful first impression on programmers.

To overcome that hurdle and render the song more compelling to radio stations, the band and label will likely need to find an external way to direct momentum behind “Somebody to You.”